The State - News from Oct. 26, 1987

At 22 cents, the wooden sign from former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver, with Cleaver’s autograph thrown in, was a great deal, says the buyer. During a weekend yard sale at Cleaver’s Berkeley home, which raised $250 for his latest legal defense fund, Byron Onisko got the radical-turned-born-again-Christian to sign the sign he bought. The sign read, “If we all work together we can totally disrupt the system.” Onisko said the price was the result of a deal between him and Susan Thompson, a Cleaver aide. “That was all the money I had, and the lady was kind enough to sell it to me,” he said. He told Cleaver he reads his book, “Soul on Ice,” at least once a year. Cleaver says he needs the money to cover legal expenses related to his arrest Oct. 2 on a cocaine possession charge. He pleaded innocent.